During my visit to Japan in May 2017 printmaker David Bull invited me to join him on a one day trip to his home in Ome together with Toshikazu Doi-san and John Amoss. I was of course delighted to accept his invitation. In Ome he showed us a selection of the Japanese woodblock prints and books in his private collection. Among those were the other three prints in the Picture scroll of Genji series designed by Okada Yoshio (Dave’s copy of the Matsukaze print was unfortunately quite heavily foxed but his copies of the other two prints were in perfect condition), so I took the opportunity to take the following pictures of Dave’s copies of these other three beautiful prints in the series (click to enlarge):

Matsukaze

Hotaru

Wakana

Even better was that it transpired that David had acquired all the blocks for the making of this series of prints as a gift from Yoshio Okada himself. I had the great privilege that day in Ome of being allowed to uncover and open up the stack of blocks used in the making of the Akashi print for the very first time since David acquired these blocks. Here are some of the photos I made along the way (click to enlarge):

The stack of blocks after I cut the ropes with a copy of the Akashi print on top

The key block

The block for the gold mica pattern on the kimono and the red Yoshi seal

The block for the light blue colour on the kimono

The block for the black hair

The second block for the black hair

Published by Yūyūdō in the 1980s.

Red seal reading Yoshi in upper left area and bottom right margin of the print.

Names of the carver and the printer in bottom margin of the print:

Character

Reading

Meaning

Translation

彫

ho(ru)

carve

利

ki(ku)

work

Carver:

松

matsu

pine

田

ta

rice field

寅

tora

sign of the tiger

蔵

zō

storehouse

Matsuda Torazō

摺

su(ru)

rub

刷

satsu

print

Printer:

上

ue

upper

杉

sugi

Japanese cedar

桂

kei

Japanese Judas-tree

一

ichi

one

郎

rō

husband

Uesugi Keiichirō

Yūyūdō publisher seal in lower left margin of the print.

The protective folder has the label:

in which the kanji 明石 read Akashi.

The print was based on this water colour painting of Okada Yoshio (click to enlarge):